Seal When exactly was owning a football club not about ego?
Of course it's about money. Every single sports club and governing body in the world is chasing money. Every single one. Don't blame football blame capitalism.
You're right, perhaps I should have developed the preposition.
The ego thing has always been a factor. we all know a certain 70 odd year old who gets in the Turtle, and revels in his profile there.
I suppose the difference today, particularly at the very highest level is the scale of the money involved.
Back in the day, in a 40,000 crowd, there were two millionaires in attendance, and they sat next to each other in the middle seats in the directors' box. Today, the millionaires are wearing the shirts on the pitch, and those two seats are occupied by billionaires. Biilionaires are scarcer.
Jack Hayward (Wolves), Jack Walker(Blackburn), were two card carrying capitalists, but they did in fact have a blind spot in throwing large chunks of their personal wealth at football clubs that they genuinely loved.
I have very serious doubts as to whether the likes of that family who own Man City, or the Yanks at Liverpool have the same depth of feeling towards their respective clubs.
Moving a sporting franchise to another place is not without precedent in this country, and is commonplace in the US.
In a future world league, the franchise for the North west uk could be alloted to United. What is there to stop the Al-Doohdahs, or whoever they are, from moving City, job lot, to Toronto?
After all, it's their £600 million that they spent on playing assets.
An extreme example, maybe, but the difference is that trying the same thing in the Black country, or rural lancashire would certainly have been over the dead bodies of the two chairmen mentioned above.